We are in our tenth year of implementing the Singapore Math program in grades K-6. Both our students and teachers have benefited from the visual modeling methods and “deep dives” into core concepts and problem solving skills the Singapore Math program emphasizes.
How did the tiny, fairly new country of Singapore get on the map with such a superior math program?...
We are in our tenth year of implementing the Singapore Math program in grades K-6. Both our students and teachers have benefited from the visual modeling methods and “deep dives” into core concepts and problem solving skills the Singapore Math program emphasizes.
How did the tiny, fairly new country of Singapore get on the map with such a superior math program? I believe much has to do with the strong emphasis on education that has been integral to the economic success of Singapore. When it started as an independent country in 1965, Singapore’s prospects did not look good. Tiny and underdeveloped, it had no natural resources and a population of relatively recent immigrants with little shared history.
The founding father of the country, Lee Kuan Yee, realized that it would require the intellectual capacity of their citizens to transform the nation. The Singapore Ministry of Education decided that a strong mathematics curriculum was critical to developing a highly educated, technically sophisticated workforce. Singapore spends more per capita on education than most first-world countries.
Singapore today is a vibrant, economic power in South Asia. Singapore is not a perfect society; it is an authoritarian government with many restrictions. However, one has to marvel at how a country with no natural resources developed into a major economic power. And, we at Crane are benefiting from the highly focused and thoughtful process the Singapore Ministry of Education invested in developing a superior mathematics curriculum.
Peter Glynn
Math Specialist